Opinions and views from expert CFOZone members.

Looks like the UK is joining other countries in trying to boost growth by wooing startups.

Prime Minister David Cameron just announced intentions to create an "entrepreneur visa", aimed at luring founders of startups with high-growth potential and "serious" financial backing to settle in the UK, according to Bloomberg Businessweek. "If you've got an idea, if you want to create jobs, and if you have the ambition to build a world beating company here in the UK, we want you," Cameron is quoted as saying. "With our new entrepreneur visa we want the whole world to know that Britain wants to become the home of enterprise and the land of opportunity." More details about the plan will be disclosed next year.

Attention finance executives: The relationship between CFOs and their boards is changing significantly from what it was a few years ago. And to be effective, you'd be wise to prepare yourself to address the questions and issues boards are focused on.

That's according to Jeff Burchill, CFO and senior vice president of FM Global, the Johnston, RI, insurance giant. Burchill says that after the economy tanked in 2008, boards switched from a focus on top-line growth and winning market share to an emphasis on cost containment--whether to close facilities, for example, or which assets to dispose of--for obvious reasons. But now, the interest is swinging back to strategy and top-line growth. (Burchill plans to discuss these observations in more depth at the MIT Sloan CFO Forum in Boston later this month).

Thomas Dooley, CFO of Viacom, received a total compensation package of more than $26 million in 2009. John Killian of Verizon Communications made a lot less--a mere $9.6 million. And Ian G.H. Ashken of Jarden Corp. got $9. 5 million.

Those fellas are the three highest paid executives included among the 25 most richly compensated CFOs in the Big Apple, according to a list just published by Crain's New York Business, drawing on data from compensation research firm Equilar.

Second quarter earnings are out and, hey, good news! Profits are up, even though revenues are down, thanks to rampant cost-cutting (read layoffs). Maybe that's starting to change . But according to some accounts, like this New York Times story , some companies nonetheless figure they're going to continue this MO over the long-term.

If cost-cutting is what you need to do to grow the bottom line, it's hard to argue against that approach. Except for two problems.

If the recent "no" Say- on- Pay votes at Motorola and Occidental Petroleum indicate anything, it's that shareholder activism and populist ire regarding executive compensation have real legs. The majority of shareholders at those companies rejected proposed pay packages in a non-binding vote. But those decisions are only the tip of the iceberg, at least as far as changes to executive comp go.

In fact, over the last 24 months, public and shareholder pressure has led one in three Fortune 500 companies to change their executive pay plans, according to Doug Frederick, head of Mercer's Executive Benefits Group, who was quoted recently in Plansponsor.com. And, in case you were wondering, those changes generally haven't involved increases.

Want to work for a Grammy winning pop star and earn big brownie points with Oprah Winfrey? Well, do we have the job for you.

On Wednesday, in promotion of her show that day, Oprah, or whoever handles such things for her, wrote on her Twitter page: "Wyclef will do great things for Haiti once he gets the right CFO." (hat tip to People.com)

The tweet is referring, of course, to Wyclef Jean, the rapper and musician, who is also Haitian-American.

Jean has recently found himself at the center of controversy because of his charitable foundation, Yele Haiti, which has seen substantial funds poured into it in the aftermath of the earthquakes that have devastated the Caribbean country.

That means managers will have to get more out of their existing workers if production is going to pick up.

Of course, what we're finding is that those that have survived layoffs still aren't that enthralled by their work. You can only recite the "at least I have a job" mantra so many times before it loses much of its motivational power.

Indeed, a report released Tuesday, based on a survey of 5,000 U.S. households conducted for The Conference Board by TNS, found only 45 percent of those surveyed say they are satisfied with their jobs, down from 61 percent in 1987, the first year in which the survey was conducted.